Chapter 52
It wasn’t Andie’s first time speeding through the warehouse district after dark, but it was her first time with ASAC Tidwell
behind the wheel. The buildings all looked alike, row after row of flat-roofed boxes, the only distinguishing feature being
and sprinted down the alley to the side entrance. Tidwell entered the passcode to the digital lock. Andie rushed inside first
and came face-to-face with Special Agent Kyle Crawford.
“Careful!” he shouted, stopping Andie stopped in her tracks.
Crawford was the go-to agent when it came to delivering tactical support and off-site platforms for SWAT and undercover planning
and communications. For Operation P-P-P, he and his team had transformed Warehouse P-72 into a remote command center. A tangle
of thick black electrical cords and cables stretched across the concrete floor. Computers and audio equipment were stacked
on one side of the room. Flat-panel monitors were arranged in U-shape fashion along the remaining three walls. Each monitor
displayed a different view of the warehouse district.
“Aronberg is hit in the knee but okay,” said Tidwell.
Andie’s heart leapt to her throat. She knew Agent Aronberg from another undercover operation.
“Has SWAT launched?” asked Tidwell.
“They’re surrounding the building,” said Crawford. “They’re at yellow.”
Yellow was the SWAT code for the final position of cover and concealment. Green was the assault, the moment of life and death, literally.
Andie’s gaze fixed on the monitor displaying a broad view of Warehouse Q-75.
“That’s Theo Knight’s space,” said Crawford. “Three buildings down on the next row. We rerigged security cameras on rows P
and Q to get these feeds.”
“Nice work,” said Tidwell, speaking to the tech agents in the room.
Andie looked more closely at the monitor. “Where’s SWAT now?”
Crawford adjusted video feed. Dressed all in black, their faces covered with greasepaint, the SWAT agents were virtually invisible
in the darkness.
“There,” said Crawford, pointing at another monitor. “When the mission goes green, Team One will blast and breach the garage
door. Team Two will advance from the north end of the alley, Team Three from the south. Aronberg is behind the dumpster midway
down the alley. Knight is with him.”
Andie feared the worst. “Was Theo Knight the shooter?”
Crawford seemed surprised by the question. “No. It was a gunrunner named Baptiste. Knight’s return fire drove him back inside
the warehouse.”
“Wait,” said Andie. “Theo was protecting Aronberg?”
“Well, yeah,” said Crawford, still sounding confused. Then he looked at Tidwell. “You haven’t told her?”
Andie no longer needed to be told. “Theo’s an informant,” she said, the picture becoming clear to her. There was both relief
and pride for Theo in her voice, both of which were outweighed by her fear for his safety.
“An informant in deep shit right now, I’m afraid,” said Crawford.
“Deeper than he needs to be,” said Tidwell. He was standing in front of monitor number five, an aerial view from a drone hovering directly over the warehouse.
“That’s a new feed,” said Crawford. “The drone just launched.”
Andie checked the same monitor and immediately put her ASAC’s concern into words.
“If Team One breaches the garage door, and Teams Two and Three shut off the alley, there’s only one thing Baptiste can do.”
Andie placed her finger on the monitor, directly over the two men in the alley behind the dumpster.
“Take hostages,” said Tidwell, totally with her.
“We need SWAT to stand down on the blast and breach of the garage door,” she told her ASAC. “They should push Baptiste and
his team in the opposite direction, away from the alley and out the garage door.”
“Agree,” said Tidwell.
“Do we have a real-time feed from the team yet?” she asked.
Crawford checked monitors nine and ten. “Coming up now. Sanchez is team leader.”
In Andie’s experience, the live-feed video came from a night-vision field camera mounted on the team leader’s helmet. Two
other team members—“breachers,” the first to enter—also had mounted cameras. The technology allowed the command center to
watch the operation unfold in real time, through SWAT’s eyes. A bone microphone and headset provided audio communication.
Andie picked up the microphone. “Sanchez, this is Agent Henning. I have ASAC Tidwell with me. We need you to stay yellow.”
“We’re green on my count of five,” he said, but it sounded more like a statement to his team than a response to Andie.
“Sanchez, stay yellow,” said Andie.
“Five, four—”
“Audio problem,” said Crawford. “He can’t hear you.”
“Three, two.”
“Sanchez!” Andie shouted.
“One.”
The real-time video feed from the mounted cameras became a blur, as SWAT burst into action.
Theo heard the blast, but it was Elton who spelled out the consequences.
“SWAT morons!” he said just loud enough for Theo to hear. “Breaching the front door will drive Baptiste out the side door!”
Theo took that as a direct order to have his pistol at the ready. He quickly reassessed their position of cover behind the
dumpster. The side door to the warehouse next to Theo’s was secured by roll-down steel shutters, sealing off a potential escape
route. Corrugated boxes, flattened and stacked for disposal, one on top of the other, rose in cardboard towers along the wall.
The alley had no streetlamp, or at least not a working one. The moonlight did little more than create confusing shadows in
what seemed like an endless black tunnel.
Suddenly, the side door flew up. Baptist rushed into the alley with an AK-47 in one hand and a semiautomatic pistol in the
other, spraying bullets down the alley in both directions. SWAT held its fire, presumably out of fear that they would accidentally
hit Theo, their undercover agent, or the SWAT agents who had closed off the other end of the alley. Theo dove between the
dumpster and the brick wall. Baptiste unloaded a barrage of armor-piercing bullets, the pop-pop-pop piercing the night as he made Swiss cheese of the metal dumpster. Theo fell to the pavement—fell hard, selling it to Baptiste
that he’d been hit—and his gun landed beside him. SWAT opened fire from the north end of the alley, and Theo could almost
hear the whistle of “friendly fire” over his head.
Baptiste grabbed Elton and forced him up on his one good leg, using him as a human shield as he put the pistol to his head.
“I got a hostage!” he shouted. “One more gunshot and he dies!”
The SWAT weapons fell silent.
Theo didn’t move, his cheek pressed to the pavement like a dead man. The tips of his fingers were just inches away from his gun, but he didn’t have the angle for a shot at Baptiste from where he lay.
“Elton and me are walking out of here!” Baptiste shouted. “One gunshot from anywhere and he dies!”
The SWAT guns remained silent. Theo waited. He could hear Baptiste breathing. Then he heard Elton’s voice.
“I can’t walk with a bullet in my knee.”
“You’re gonna fucking walk!” Baptiste said to him.
A stack of crushed cardboard boxes toppled over at the end of the alley. Clearly SWAT was on the move.
“No sound!” Baptiste shouted, and he pressed the gun more firmly against his hostage’s head.
Theo remained still. He was channeling his days as a Grove Lord. When other kids were shooting three-pointers on the basketball
court or throwing a football, he and his badass older brother Tatum were taking target practice with live ammunition, perfecting
their “kill shot” from every position imaginable, standing, squatting, lying on their bellies—or flying through the air like
a superhero.
Theo’s fingers moved slowly toward the gun. He grabbed it.
“One more sound and he dies!” Baptiste shouted.
Theo launched himself from behind the dumpster.
“One more sound and—”
The crack of a single gunshot echoed through the alley, as Theo soared past his target. Baptiste’s head snapped, and a spray
of blood covered the wall behind him. Theo fell as Baptiste fell, but only one was still alive when they hit the pavement.
Elton lowered himself onto his good knee. “Holy fuck,” he said in disbelief.
Theo stayed down. SWAT agents were quickly all around them. Theo could hear the other members of the team inside the warehouse,
rounding up Baptiste’s workers.
“Are you hurt?” a SWAT agent shouted at Theo.
“I’m good.”
Two other agents locked hands to create a human sling for Elton to sit in.
Theo followed as they whisked him toward the ambulance waiting at the end of the alley and placed him on a gurney.
As they hurried to load the wounded agent into the ambulance and jabbed a needle into his arm for IV fluids, Elton made them stop, and his gaze landed on Theo.
“Dude, that was one hell of a shot. You’re a lot better than just ‘all right’ with that pistol.”
Theo smiled. “Yeah. I know.”
The door closed and the ambulance sped away, siren wailing. Andie was suddenly standing at Theo’s side.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“I didn’t even tell Jack.”
“I’m beyond proud of you. But you should have come to me. Or Jack. We could have helped you.”
“You did help me,” he said. “When you told me you would rip me ‘a new one.’ That’s when I reached out to the FBI to be an
informant.”
“Okay. But, still, you could have come to me or Jack about being an informant.”
Theo turned to face her squarely. “Andie, don’t take this the wrong way. But I don’t need your help. I don’t need Jack’s help.
You know who needs your help? Y’all do. So do me a favor. Help each other.”
Andie didn’t answer. But as the red swirl of the ambulance beacon lit up her face, Theo could see that his advice had landed.